NEWCASTLE — In a development that has forced the UN Security Council to call an emergency session, Newcastle United announced the signing of goalkeeper Lukas Hornicek from Braga for £25.7 million, a fee so historically unprecedented that diplomats are now debating whether it constitutes a breach of international financial law.
The transfer, which sources confirm actually happened and was not a hoax perpetrated by a rogue social media account, has prompted world leaders to dust off their nuclear briefcases and instead use them to hold crisis talks about goalkeeper valuations. The French government has formally requested that the fee be submitted to the International Court of Justice. Germany has suggested it violates the Geneva Convention. Canada, characteristically, apologized for not thinking of it first.
Newcastle fans, who have spent the better part of a decade watching their club throw money at problems like a billionaire with a gambling addiction, have reportedly begun checking their bank statements to confirm they did not accidentally authorize this transaction themselves.
Hornicek, who will now earn more per week than the entire Braga squad earned last season, is expected to arrive on Tyneside sometime after the shock wears off globally and world markets stabilize. The Premier League has requested that all future goalkeeper signings be capped at the GDP of a small European nation, effective immediately.